‘OTTO’ Odes To The Ocean

Music (Catherine Shrubshall & Richard Kett)

Film (Sally Child)

 “Odes to the Ocean” was conceived by myself in the early part of 2023, during a 6 week creative retreat in Essex where I overlooked the ocean - I wrote music inspired by stories of the sea and those whose lives depended on it - I collaborated with composer/producer Richard Kett at “Dave Studiios” in Woodbridge to make a 45 min soundtrack from this material. The main characters are: women of the shore, children of the shore, fisher girls, fishermen at sea, Stella Maris, forgotten ancestors and alluring sirens...the music in this project is ethereal, cinematic, dark, dramatic, nostalgic, haunting and playful…influenced by folk music, world music, free improvisation, various popular music styles and classical music. There are many instruments played live on the tracks…including: clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophone, conches, cow horns, singing bowls, harmonium, guitar and percussion.

The project grew with more collaborations: film maker Sally Child, textile artist/dancer Shane Waltener, musician/performance artist Cydnei Baines, somatic movement teacher/dancer Georgie Ferarro, visual artist/performance artist Eleanor Vonne Brown and architect/artist Roger Crimlis. Together we designed an immersive multi-media event with improvised movement and performance art to accompany the music...we experimented with this idea in April 2023 for 2 presentations of OTTO in Walton on the Naze at "The Nose Bookshop and Project Space” along with a stitching workshop beforehand…OTTO was then picked up for a residency at the “We Are The Minories" pop up creative space in Colchester in May/June 2023.  The residency included a sold out “Stitch & Sing” workshop (run by textile artist Shane Waltener, and musicians Cydnei B and myself), plus 3 performances of “Odes to the Ocean” (the music, the film and the whole collective live). We used rope and nets made in the workshop as props in our performance, which also served as an installation in the space outside the performance times… and the recordings of work songs, stories and shanties we sang live in the workshop have been mixed in to the soundtrack. We would like to grow this element of our community work and its inclusion in our OTTO plans for the future.

Plans for OTTO in 2024/25

We are taking the project to New Zealand between January and May 2024, and will be part of the Harwich Festival in June 2025.